The business of bidding for an Olympics is almost as grand as the Games themselves, given the time and money involved.

Earlier this month, when Salt Lake City officials announced their interest in hosting the 2026 Winter Olympics, the exploratory committee report estimated that bidding to become the U.S. candidate would cost about $1 million. If chosen as the U.S. candidate, the bid budget would escalate to $25 million to $30 million to compete against international cities.

The U.S. Olympic Committee is considering bidding for the 2024 Summer Olympics or the Winter Games in 2026. A USOC committee exploring both options will report its findings to the group's board of directors at a meeting Thursday.

In addition to Salt Lake City, Reno-Lake Tahoe, Denver and Bozeman, Mont., have also expressed interest in hosting the Winter Games.

Salt Lake City's report projected the 2026 Games would have a $1.6 billion operating budget and have an economic benefit greater than $5 billion.

Given the larger scale and cost of hosting a Summer Games, the contenders could be far fewer, said Fraser Bullock, the chief operating officer of the 2002 Salt Lake Organizing Committee and an advisor to the recent proposal.

Earlier this year, Bullock and USOC chief executive Scott Blackmun helped resolve the revenue-sharing dispute with the International Olympic Committee that helped derail recent American bids.

Those tensions played a part in Chicago's first-round elimination in the vote for the 2016 Summer Games. New York was a candidate for the 2012 Olympics before losing in the second round.

"It would be nice to rotate back to the Summer Games since the summer is a bigger stage and maybe do a Winter Games down the road," Bullock said. "However, the economics of the Games has expanded so dramatically. It's not so much a city bid anymore as a country bid. It wasn't London, it was the U.K. and it wasn't Beijing, it was China.

"A city that signs up to host the Summer Games needs to be looking at a $5 to $10 billion dollar check -- net of any revenues they would receive. It's a very big commitment and in today's economic times, I wonder how many cities would really step up to that."

Bullock speculated that perhaps only New York or Los Angeles could handle the magnitude of a Summer Games. He pointed to the lack of an Olympic Stadium in New York as an issue. Dallas has indicated interest in the past.

Though 2024 and 2026 seem like distant dates in the future, the IOC makes its decision seven years in advance of the Games. If the USOC is interested in pursuing the 2024 Summer Games, the organization would have to indicate its interest in 2015 and the voting would take place in 2017.